Who is the ChiefHomeOfficer?

YOU are - or anyone who works from home. Whether you're a full-time 1099er, a corporate teleworking W-2er, a part-time eBayer, or any head-of-household handling family, finances and affairs from a corner desk - and in search of a little balance in the home office, then ChiefHomeOfficer's your destination.
Think of Chief Home Officer.com as LifeHacker meets the home office - no matter what home office you run. Entrepreneurs will discover SOHO 2.0 business insight. Teleworkers will learn leading-edge remote work strategies. will spot tips, tales and links on balance. And those considering making the leap into home officing will unearth equal parts reality and validation. Explore. Learn. Return.

The SOHO Sherpa…

ChiefHomeOfficer is your SOHO Sherpa - a guide to all the things that make the Small Or Home Office (SOHO) work. Since 1993, we've chronicled the work-at-home adventure. Today, the site offers honest and occasionally humorous insights, tips, tech/product reviews, and commentary that cut through the "Make Millions From Home" promise and just lay down the real skinny on a lifestyle people can work and live with.

Want to learn more? If you work from home, want to, or are a corporate marketer hoping to talk to those who do, email jeff [at] chiefhomeofficer dot com.

Meta

I bought an iPhone recently. After about half a century on a BlackBerry Pearl – whose case was battered and whose trackball had lost its ability to track – this home office entrepreneur picked what long had been the Forbidden Fruit. I really liked my Pearl, and especially appreciated its pintish size that made it nearly invisible in my pocket. It was a badge of honor — carrying something those who know me know I’ve carried for so long. But it was aged and dying a slow, undignified death. Most of all, it had little capacity to meet my real motivation: My 12-gigabyte-and-growing iTunes library.

But what’s a suburban-dad / small business owner to do when faced with dozens of smartphones – each fully capable of handling my business needs, but generally equal in attributes such as size, processing power, megapixel cameras and the like?

I searched and scoured the landscape — looking for one device that would replace a trusted tool and guide me gently (and belatedly, it seems) into the 21st Century.

I demo’d the Motorola Razr on the Android OS. Nice. Powerful. As a fan of All Things Google, I was drawn by its Android guts. On the Verizon Wireless 4G network, it was wicked fast. With a Kevlar back and Gorilla Glass front, it was a hardy beast. But, alas, it’s form factor was a big too large to nest comfortably in my pants pocket. It wasn’t for me.

I went to my mobile carrier’s store, and touched, fondled, played with and generally demo’d all the devices – from Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Pantech, LG, HTC, and the lot. None had the memory I wanted – at least without a memory card. None was, in the end, as elegant, simple and streamlined as the iPhone 4S. It’s as elegant a device as is out there. It’s powerful, small enough for my pockets, and fit quite nicely indeed in my business / personal lifestyle.

The first thing I did once I got home – after snatching it out of my kids’ hands – was change the signature. That’s the little message that’s embedded at the end of every email sent from a computer or wireless phone. The iPhone’s default sig says, “Sent from my iPhone.” Frankly, Apple gets enough free publicity from the millions of phones in consumer and small business owners’ hands.

I went to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Signatures, and wrote a new sig. It included my name, home office phone number, and my two primary URLs (ChiefHomeOfficer.com and GotWords.com). Simple as pie. Certainly more effective as a marketing gesture than that silly default message. I reckon Mr. Jobs is looking down and nodding in agreement.

Then I installed a passcode (Settings > General > Passcode Lock). The world is too full of malcontents and ne’er-do-wells to trust something as powerful as a smartphone when mistakenly out of my grasp.

I then signed into GMail (Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Exchange…). If the iPhone is an elegant piece of hardware, GMail is as powerful and elegant a mail, contacts and calendaring platform as is available on the market – especially when running on the iPhone. Installing GMail also was pretty simple on the Razr we demo’d. But after a quick search for “How to install GMail on an iPhone” on YouTube, I was on my way. (It took some getting used to. GMail on the iPhone operates like an exchange server. When I open, file or delete an email here [on whichever device ‘here’ may be], the same happens on the other. Much different from my Pearl).

Then I got to installing apps. No Angry Birds here. All free and productivity focused. Among the apps I installed…

– No games (see previous paragraph). Except chess. I dig chess. I stink at it, but I’m always hopeful that I’ll beat the computer at a level higher than three (of 10).

– A host of news apps – NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, national magazines, my local papers, and several political pubs. I’m no news junkie or political wonk, but I want my media close when I’m so inspired.

– A QR Code reader. QR Codes are becoming an important marketing / messaging tool. They’re easy to use and with the right reader, simple to read.

The iPhone fits neatly into my life, as well as my pants. When I awaken in the morning, I spend 10 minutes clearing the cobwebs from my brain with a quick email check and surfing session. Then I go about my business.

Contrary to the warnings of my kids and some adults I know who have an iPhone, I’m not addicted to the device. It’s a stinkin’ phone, for Pete’s sake – an elegant, small, powerful phone. But a phone nonetheless.